Cold Winter Morning
by Clara Barton
Summary: Duo wakes up one cold winter morning to a surprise.


A/N: After a day of angst, working on some fluff.

Warnings: fluff, sex, language

Pairing: 2x3

Cold Winter Morning

It was cold. Fucking freezing, actually, and Duo didn't know why he was so cold. He had gone out last weekend when it fell down to thirty degrees and bought two extra blankets, giving him a total of three, in addition to the flannel sheets and the sweatpants he wore to sleep and -

He wasn't wearing his sweats. He was naked.

And he wasn't under flannel sheets and three layers of blankets. He was fighting to wrap the corner a too thin for his needs quilt over his body.

It was a fight because the majority of the quilt was being hogged by the lean, firm body next to him possessed of extremely cold feet.

Duo shivered and shied away - which made him fall out of the bed.

He landed on the floor with a cold, painful thump and he cursed.

His ass hurt from the landing, and his head pounded from the movement.

"Ow, fuck."

He drew in a deep breath, tried to calm his head and his stomach and thought about moving, to get away from the cold fucking tile floor - definitely not his room, which had an excellent high pile rug that felt amazing under his feet in the cold winter months - but he suspected that moving again would only make him feel worse.

"You okay down there?"

Duo started at the voice. He knew that voice.

"Trowa?"

He looked up at the sound of the bedding moving and saw Trowa stick his head over the edge and arch an eyebrow at him.

_Huh_.

Duo tried to remember last night, the last night of finals, and the party that Hilde had dragged him to.

He remembered drinking, a lot. He remembered dancing, he remembered tripping and falling into Trowa's lap, remembered Trowa smirking at him and picking Duo's braid out of his cup of beer and telling him that he was happy to share the beer and Duo didn't need to sneak it with his braid.

Duo stared up at his crush of two years, at the boy he had stared at all through freshmen orientation and then proceeded to vomit on that night at the keg party.

_How the hell_, he wondered, _did I end up in his bed?_

He didn't remember that part - didn't remember much of anything past the falling in the lap part.

"So…"

Duo realized Trowa was looking at him, eyebrow arched, green eyes raking over his naked body.

Duo hoped Trowa liked what he saw.

"Comfortable?" Trowa asked.

"Not really," Duo admitted. "It's cold as balls."

Duo stood up, resisted the urge to cover himself, and glanced around the room. Glanced slowly, then more slowly, then closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.

_Shit. How much did I drink last night?_

"Um, any chance you know where my clothes are?" Duo asked, his eyes still closed as he focused on not puking all over Trowa _again_.

"Sorry."

Duo opened his eyes. What did that mean?

"You… don't?"

Trowa shook his head.

"How - I mean… I was wearing clothes last night."

"Yes, you were, but then - you don't remember?"

Duo blushed at Trowa's look of amusement.

He snorted.

"Of course I remember." He glanced at the bed, at Trowa's naked torso. "Like I'd forget a night spent with you."

Trowa arched an eyebrow.

"Because it definitely wasn't forgettable," Duo added quickly, sensing that he was digging himself a grave as deep as the Grand Canyon. "Was it?"

"Apparently," Trowa murmured.

Duo closed his eyes and sighed.

"At some point last night you decided it would be a good idea to take a shower, and someone else decided it would be a good idea to take your clothes - which is where you left your room key."

Duo closed groaned.

"And Heero already left for home," he said. His roommate had finished his last exam, scoffed at Duo's efforts to cajole him into going to the party, and cautioned him not to vomit all over the Walking Wet Dream again.

"Yes, so I let you sleep here."

"Why… didn't I… naked?" He didn't know how to ask whether or not they had made good use of Duo's lack of clothes.

"I tried to give you clothes and you just said you'd vomit all over them and you promised Heero you wouldn't vomit on the Walking -"

"No, for the love of God tell me I didn't say it out loud."

Trowa's green eyes danced with amusement.

Duo groaned and covered his face with his hands.

"Fucking kill me now." He had no idea how to recover from this, how to play it off, how to maintain _any _semblance of coolness after this. Not that, he supposed, he had any. He'd already vomited on Trowa before. There was no coolness left to salvage.

"I'd rather not," Trowa said.

Duo peeked at him over his hands.

"But I didn't - I didn't vomit on you, did I?"

"Not since Freshmen year," Trowa assured him.

That was something, then.

"How much longer are you going to stand there freezing your ass off?"

"Um… either until I'm confident I won't vomit on your or until I just disapear."

Trowa snorted.

"You're really obsessing over the vomit."

"You came up to me and told me I was cute and I _vomited_ all over you."

"I did think it was an uncalled for response."

"How can you be so… cavalier about the fact that I embarrassed the shit out of myself the day I met you?"

Trowa shrugged one shoulder.

"Probably because I wasn't the one doing the vomiting, but also because this is the most you've spoken to me since then."

That was true enough.

They were both history majors and had had at least two classes together each semester for the last two years, had even been partnered together for a few group projects, and Duo had also tried his damnedest not to make a fool of himself - which meant talking to Trowa as little as possible to eliminate the possibility of confessing his undying love and eternal apologies for the vomit.

"I…"

"Don't tell me you didn't speak because you were afraid of vomiting on me again."

"Look, I don't think you understand how traumatic it was for me. There I am, eighteen, my first keg party, my first life butterflies in the stomach crush and you said I was cute and then I ruined the _rest_ of my life."

"I didn't like that shirt much anyway," Trowa shrugged.

They stared at each other and Duo wondered what he should do.

Trowa scooted over in the bed, closer to the wall, clearly inviting Duo to join him again.

Duo hesitated.

"Your feet are really fucking cold, Trowa."

"I'm sorry - coming from _you_? Your feet might as well be blocks of ice."

Duo climbed back into the bed and sullenly yanked more of the quilt to his side.

Trowa snorted a laugh and rolled over so that he was facing Duo.

"So, someone stole my clothes - how did I end up _here_, when I live two floors up?" Duo had to ask.

Trowa blushed.

"Trowa?"

"You… were singing Paint It Black pretty loudly in the shower."

"Loud enough for you to hear me from down here?"

"No."

"So you…"

"Were on your floor, hoping to ask you out and I heard you singing so I stuck around."

Duo tried to process that.

"Ask me out."

"On a date."

"Huh."

"Huh? That's really it?"

"Well, I mean… do you want me to just propose right now or can I maintain a little bit of mystery and pretend to have to think about it first?"

"I'd never say yes to any man that proposed to me minutes after insulting the temperature of my feet," Trowa huffed.

"Noted. Next time I'll wait a few hours between insulting your feet and proposing."

"About that date?"

"Oh. I mean… I guess… if I'm not too busy or something… I could probably fit you in."

"Vomiting on me doesn't count as a date."

"And here I thought you were going to tactfully forget that ever happened."

"Never."


End file.
